


Sherlock: Origins

by Riddle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riddle/pseuds/Riddle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 2005 Sherlock Holmes was a young spoilt twenty something with too much time on his hands and a serious drug problem with no outlet. He is arrested and finds a safe haven through on old skill that his brother taught him long ago. The story of how Sherlock Holmes became the Sherlock Holmes that we all know today. Sherlock BBC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlock: Origins

The date was November 18th 2005. And by his count it must have been sometime after 7 at night. With each tick of the hands on the clock he added a number to his ongoing tally of seconds. That morning he found himself awakening on the couch in his apartment, his head aching and his eyes stinging all side effects from the hangover of a life time that he would be nursing that day. It had been 7 when he woke up, and it was 7 now. He didn’t know why, but the man called Sherlock Holmes found himself laughing at the chronological symmetry. ’12 hours’ he thought 12 hours meant 720 minutes, 720 minutes indicated 43,200 seconds, that sounded right. 43,200 seconds and 43,200 ticks of the clock by his side, each one caused his left eye to twitch uncomfortably. His eyes were shut and his window shades were drawn, a pillow was wrapped around his head fashioned into some kind of soundproofing device. He felt a sort of pull in his stomach, as it twisted into angry knots, his headache continued to grow more and more sever with each moment until it was just a numb throbbing. Beads of sweat were formed on his brow and the back of his neck. His muscles ached and his hands and legs were feeling restless and had begun to shake. He new these symptoms all too well by now, it was withdrawal.   
When was the last time that I had a dose? He thought. He didn’t have much left but he forced himself to sit up and kneel at the foot of his coffee table. The drugs were already laid out into small thin rows on the glass tabletop. He pulled a loose note from his pocket and rolled it into a small cylinder. He bent his head down and huffed in a breathe through his nose, and felt the white dust as he snorted it up. He usually preferred to do his drugs by use of a needle but this was no time to complain, he was desperate for a hit. He fell back into a comfortable slouch and wiped the power from his face with his shirtsleeve. Within moments his nerves relaxed, and his body no longer burnt in its former agony. 

But his relief was short lived as in that moment heavy footsteps were clearly audible outside his door followed by the shouting of men declaring themselves police officers. The knocking stopped and with a heavy the thud the door fell to the ground, the officer’s had kicked it in, Sherlock jolted forward in reaction to the fallen door. Dim yellow light from the hall way poured in, and along with the light 7…no 8 policemen in uniform. They shined their torches around the dark apartment, until one ray of light fell a crossed him. 

“Over here,” a voice shouted, it sounded muffled as though he were hearing it from another room. 

The men lifted Sherlock from his floor pulling him up by his two arms and setting him unsteadily on his feet. He rocked back in forth for a moment, in a stunned and confused haze. 

The next hour or so was a complete blur, Sherlock was not even sure that he was conscious for the entirety. He was taken from his apartment, to a police car, and then driven to a local station. He waited for a while had his prints taken and his pictures and was thrown in a cell without another word. 

It wasn’t until the morning that Sherlock finally reached full cognizance again. Though his head was reeling and his stomach was cramped, he had woken up in worse circumstances, ones that often involved a pool of excess bile. He was in a small compartment about 6’ by 13’ he estimated. White tile walls and a high window above his head bared off by metal restraints. He noticed the dirty floor and the used cot where he had been lying. Though he still felt sick and unstable, climbed carefully onto the bed to use it as a step in order to see out of the window on the wall opposite to the locked cell door. He saw a few buildings none recognized for sure, but he knew the architecture well and easily deduced that his was somewhere in Greenwich for sure, not but a few miles from his flat. He ran through a list of the police stations in Greenwich and through process of eliminations decided that he was in the 238th district precinct. 

There was a heavy and forceful knock on the metal door, the vibrations rattled the cell and the sounds of the pounding resonated through the door echoing slightly after each blow. The thick door then slid open and a man with salt and pepper hair a long nose and a thin jawline stepped in wearing the custom police uniform. 

“Could you knock quieter…sheesh…” Sherlock said in a raspy voice

The officer’s face twisted in annoyance and he responded by shouting “NOT REALLY.”

Then man signaled Sherlock that they were moving him with an irritated sideways nod. Sherlock obeyed and followed the detective. He was led into an interrogation room. The man sat opposite him on the other side of the musty room. Sherlock’s eyes wondered the room slightly noting things like the rusty hinges on the door and the flickering bulb that told him much about the station and its budget. 

“Do you know where you are Mr. Holmes?” The man asked mechanically as he read from a sheet of paper 

“The 238th district precinct Greenwich London.” He said 

The man looked somewhat alarmed, that Sherlock knew where he was.

“And do you know why you’re here?” 

“Drugs I imagine,” He said with a shrug 

“Indeed,” He nodded his head, as he looked down at his papers in the manila file. “Sherlock Holmes…this is your second drug related arrest. But you also have charges for stalki-“

“A misunderstanding.” 

“Grave desecration, impersonating a police officer and obstruction of justice.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes “its not obstructing when justice isn’t being preformed. The officers were wrong, they convicted the incorrect man because they ignored crucial evidence and misinterpreted the clues they did find.”  
The officer was speechless; he wasn’t prepared what Sherlock had to say.

 

“So then…” Sherlock said giving the man a once over, scanning him with his eyes. “Middle class family growing up not particularly bright but also not incompetent. Newly married to a woman who is cheating on you with the man next door.” Sherlock leaned in closer “you’re under heavy stress the lines under your eyes and the marks on your face indicate that you have been sleeping on your arm, most likely at your desk in an uncomfortable position going by the awkward way you were walking when you took me in here you injured your lower lumbar vertebrae. You breath smells of cheap coffee so you slept agitatedly without rest indicating a high level of anxiety mixed with the tapping of your fingers and your feet. Also there are creases in your suit where you clearly folded it and brought an extra shirt and jacket with you, showing that you stayed here over night and needed something to change into. So what’s the case detective?”

His mouth was gapping. 

“How the he-“

“Quite simple really, not even a challenge if you know what you’re looking for.” 

“I’m not a detective yet, but I’m up for a promotion…” he admitted hesitantly 

“Surprise,” Sherlock said opening his eyes wide for emphasis as he spoke. 

Just then there was a knock on the door, and the man got up and walked to the door he slipped outside, Sherlock could hear the subdued sound of voices through the door. The detective came back wearing an unhappy expression. 

“You’re free to go Mr. Holmes.” 

Sherlock smiled satirically, like a spoiled child who’d just gotten what he wanted. 

“You must have friends in very high places Mr. Holmes,”

“Oh Sherlock please,” he said “And I wouldn’t call him a friend, more of…an arch nemesis really.” 

“Nice meeting you though detective…what was it again?”

His face was un-amused “Greg Lestrade,” 

“Very nice Grant,”

Once the man was gone, the detective slumped into his chair exhausted “Greg,” he muttered quietly. 

Once he was back to his apartment, Sherlock Holmes opened his laptop moved the cursor over to the search bar “Prisoners at the 283rd precinct” he typed. Lists of option appeared and he searched through them until he found the article he was looking for. A newspaper editorial featuring the name Cameron Scott, Sherlock knew the name all too well. A serial killer with 17 homicides under his belt, Sherlock had studied the cases, and he knew the man’s style though he was sure that Scott was inactive. He was calm and intelligent, he worked with knives mostly stabbing and slicing, but he aloud the victims to bleed out on their own. Which suggested he was emotionally distant, he didn’t was to be attached to the victims or the crime, subconsciously he was guilty but at the same time he hid the bodies effectively which implied that had no desire to be caught. He was a difficult find, but his trial should be uneventful. The thing that Sherlock had never understood was why would someone like Scott who had a future and had intellect resort to a life of crime. In some ways Sherlock felt connected to the man. They shared certain personality traits that would have made them effective partners—a fact that disturbed Sherlock to the bone. He had often considered how his life might have been different if he had succumbed to a life of crime, instead of a life of crime solving. But though he often classified him self as a self diagnosed High Functioning sociopath, he never found excitement in the idea of being on the other end of the body. 

Sherlock leaned back in his chair, marveling about how stimulating it was that if he hadn’t had an outlet for his brain’s susceptible nature his aptitude for addiction might have lead him down a road that lead no where good. The drugs were what kept him from spiraling into corruption, though Sherlock knew that his addiction was dangerous and was killing him every day. At that though his smile of intrigue faded, and he raised his pressed together hands up to his nose into a position that associated with contemplation. 

In that moment, his cell phone at his side rang emitting the theme from “Psycho”. Displaying an icon of the queen of England photo shopped so she was holding an umbrella in one hand. The name Mycroft flashed a crossed the screen. Sherlock rolled his eyes, but reluctantly pressed the answer button. 

“Mycroft,” Sherlock greeted ceremoniously as he always did. “How did you find out?”

“Come now brother mine, you should know by now that I know everything.”

“Ah yes of course,” he said and then switched to a mocking tone of voice “’A minor position in the British government’ yes obviously…” 

“Sarcasm really doesn’t suit you.” 

“What did you want Mycroft?” he asked hurriedly 

“I want you to stop getting arrested, and to stop doing class one narcotics but that is for another occasion. It seems you made quite the impression on the detectives today at the station, and well…”

“Let me guess,” Sherlock interrupted “They want to further the investigation and have me sent in for psychiatric rehabilitation at an asylum?”

His brother let go a dry humorless chuckle. “Quite the opposite my dear brother, in fact they wish to hire you on a temporary basis to consult on a case.”

Silence. 

“A new detective who goes by the name of Lestrade, seems to have been fascinated by your…um shall we call them skills?”

“What case?” he asked though he was fairly sure he already knew.

“Well I’m sure I don’t know, what would I possibly know about crimes and crime solving?”

Sherlock knew very well that Mycroft had once been an amazing detective himself, never professionally but he in fact had taught Sherlock all that he knew about the art of deduction. If it wasn’t for his brother’s maturity and willingness to take a mind numbingly dull job in politics, then surly he might have been the family detective and not Sherlock. 

He soon ended his conversation with his brother and hung up the phone. He allowed a smile to creep onto his face, and his lips twisted ghoulishly. 

“Yes!” he shouted, “Finally, this city is so…boring, so…tedious. Finally something fun to do, oh I do hope it’s a murder.”

Next he found himself showered and dressed, cleaned up slightly pulling on his jacket, it was a waist long brown coat with leather elbows like that of a professor. His wrapped his scarf around his neck, swallowed some pills on his way out and slammed the door behind him. 

He hailed a taxi and in twenty minutes was down at the station again, this time on far better terms.   
He saw the detective from earlier. 

“Ah Garret,” he said, “I do believe I was summoned.”

The man gave him a exasperated look running his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. “Greg,” he said from between clenched teeth. 

“Ah yes, of course.” He nodded “So about this case?”

Lestrade nodded and led Sherlock back to where the detective’s desks were, away from the crowds of pedestrians. 

“Cameron Scott” he said allowing the name to flow from his tongue like the name of a plague “What do you know about him?”

“Serial killer, thought to be inactive but evidently not. He’s committed at least a dozen homicides.” 

“Right and he just killed again, I asked to have you brought in to take a look at the case.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because today you showed me something incredible, you saw right through me and looked at clues, you’re practically a detective yourself. You did some incredibly brilliant things, just show me I was not wrong to invite you.”

Sherlock nodded. 

Lestrade handed Sherlock a manila folder, inside he found tox screen reports, the cause of death pictures of the crime scene and information on the victim as well as potential locations of Scott.

“Are you sure it’s Scott?” Sherlock said

“Yes.” He answered immediately “We have a witness plus it’s his MO.”

“Not enough,” Sherlock said shaking his head “You need more than that to convince a jury and more importantly me. Witnesses can be bribed and MOs can be copied.”

“The lacerations on the body are consistent with strangling. “ Sherlock considered “it sounds like him.”

“Now we’re orchestrating a think tank to find him, I can get you in if-“

“No I prefer to work alone,” Sherlock cut him off  
“At least let me assign you an intern or something.”

“Fine.”

Lestrade scanned the room until his eyes landed on a nerdy looking boy, about 4 years younger than Sherlock; he had brown hair and glasses, and was working the mail cart at the moment. 

Lestrade signaled the boy to come over, and he did. 

“Yes sir, what can I do for you?”

“Anderson I’m going to need you to give this man what ever he needs tonight while he is giving us all invaluable help on one of our cases.”

“Of course!” the kid said enthusiastically 

Lestrade smiled at him like a proud father “Sherlock this is Anderson, he is one of our best and brightest, he is going to be a great detective one day as soon as he works his way up the ladder like I did. He will be at your beck and call.”

Anderson nodded “Definitely, I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

He would later be promptly fired by Sherlock and banished from his apartment by 11 o’clock that night.

After ordering the intern from his flat, Sherlock sat alone on his back staring at the ceiling where we had glued the clues and pieces of evidence to the ceiling connected with pieces of red and blue yarn. 

His hands were raised up to his mouth and pressed together as though he was praying; he was in a way praying for answers because he was lost. He hadn’t done any real detective work in years, he was rusty and its was really starting to get to him. 

For hours he sat there, mumbling nonsense as his eyes darted back and forth until his head began to ache and he had to stop. 

The next morning he again made a trip out to the precinct, and then to a near by hospital morgue where the victim’s body still resided. He wanted to do his own analysis on the body, because he knew that surly whatever mortician did the autopsy must have missed something. 

The Doctor led him into the mortuary; the body was sprawled out on a steel table, with a white cloth covering his lower half. A young mousy brunet stood at the end of the table holding a clipboard and scribbling frantically on some forms. 

“Mr. Holmes this is Molly Hooper, a medical student here interning on her rounds. She will be here to assist you whilst I observe.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, why did he always get the interns, could he just work with some professionals? 

“Mr. Holmes,” The girl called Molly said, “This is the most recent Victim—Henry Salinger. He worked as an orderly at a hospital about 45 minutes away.” 

“You say most recent as though you already know the murderer, which you do not so lets avoid such unconstructive thinking and wording yes? And I don’t need the mans entire background history.” 

She nodded. 

“The vic, suffered cranial trauma during what was most likely an attack, you can tell from the bruising and defensive wounds that he most likely tried to defend himself, by raising his arms to cover his face.” She said demonstrating his movements with her own arms 

He nodded. 

“Then after the assault, he was knocked to the floor unconscious and restrained with a choking wire as seen here by the lacerations around the throat.” She recited pointing to the marks on his neck. They were unusually thick, and something about them through Sherlock through a loop. 

He motioned for her to continue with a look of understanding. 

She swallowed and began again “The lacerations around the neck were the cause of death, he was asphyxiated.” 

“What can you tell me about the murderer from your findings Ms. Hooper?”

“Oh…um, Molly please.” She suggested

“I would be far more comfortable with Ms. Hooper.”

“Yes of course…” she agreed “Anyway, the body tells us that…” she thought for a moment “The attacker would have had to have been quite large to fight the victim who is a 6’3’’ man weighing approximately 86 kilograms.” 

Sherlock shook his head, “No no no! You see but do not observe Ms. Hooper.”

“You look at this man and you see someone who fought for his life and lost, someone who was very large and strong but was not strong enough. However what you should see is that in order to fight this man, the assailant needed to use tools. Look here at his face; the blunt trauma that he obtained during his fight was not from a punch or a kick, but rather a book or a clipboard—which you can tell from the unique rectangular bruising that it left on his skin. More so, the choking wire shows further that the attacker did not wish for the victim to wake back up, which tells us what?”

“That the attacker didn’t want to fight him…”

“Right, and that means most likely that he was either wounded or harmed at some point or the more likely scenario that he/she was smaller considerably. The wire and the book also shows how the assailant was forced to used weapons rather than brute force, again giving backing to the idea that the perpetrator was smaller or weaker than this man.”

He spun on his heels opened his phone and dialed the station “Lestrade, the person who attacked his man was considerably smaller than we thought at first, Scott—a tall bulky former footballer--would not have used such tactics in his crime, and consequently did not kill this man. We have a copycat killer on the lose.”

Four hours later the precinct was a chaotic nightmare. Interns scrambling to keep coffee cups full, while detectives frustratedly rubbed their temples as they tried to put the clues together and make connections. Lestrade had assembled a special think tank of forensic professionals all gathered together in a conference room at the far end of the station. Due to his failings with Anderson, he was forced to take part in speculation. They argued and yelled desperately trying to speak above each other, formulating theories and spouting facts about forensics and psychological profiling. Each time someone in the room opened their mouth, it made Sherlock want to get up and leave. 

“Shut up!” he eventually shouted

They all stopped yelling and turned to him. 

“Thank you.” He said exasperatedly “This is why I hate working with people!”

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Not a good trait for a privet detective.” 

“Well maybe I’m not a privet detective!” he said “Maybe from now on I’m a…a…consulting detective!” 

“That’s not a real job,”

Sherlock sighed then pointed to himself “Well then that makes me the first one. I suppose I just invented the job.”

He then turned to the white board where pictures and facts had been written about the case. He began to mumble things to himself about alibis and suspects, when his phone rang. He looked down expecting another call from his obnoxious brother, but actually it was St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Confused he answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“Sherlock?” A timid voice began “Oh, umm sorry…Mr. Holmes I should say, this is Molly Hooper from the morgue.”

“Ah yes I believe I remember,” He said acerbically 

“I have some new information for you based on new interpretations of evidence.” He said awkwardly trying to ignore his previous comment. 

He waited for her to continue. 

“We think that we have identified the weapon.”

“It wasn’t a choking wire?” he asked

“It might have been, but it was pulled very tightly and with a huge amount of strength, and given your hypothesis about the murder being smaller and weaker I thought it was odd. The wire was pulled in a way so that the marks on the victim’s throat were equally deep almost all the way around the neck, which we wouldn’t see on a normal strangling. I think there was garrote used.” 

He hung up the phone without another word. Then he rotated on his heels and after taking a deep calming breath he relayed the news to the team. 

One of the men who wore a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and dress pants, spoke first. 

“Well fine then, does that put us back to square one?” 

His negativity was only matched by his stupidity. 

“No of course not, but it does give us a new lead! One of you, whoever commands the interns send one out with a CSI team and tell them to search nearby dumpsters and drains for a long pipe or a think piece of wood. Something…I don’t know garrote...ish” 

The man in blue nodded and stood up, he walked out to relay the message to the officers and interns. 

Sherlock sat himself down in an office chair at the table. He watched the man in blue walk away with a small group of policemen. The others in the room continued talking and comparing stories, but the task seemed tedious and dull, so instead he tuned out and ignored the noises around him. Sherlock had always had a somewhat useless talent of ignoring people when they were talking. Sometimes he himself often went long periods of time without talking and spent many hours inside his own head, in moments like these it seemed like maybe it wasn’t as impractical of a skill as he had previously thought. 

Sherlock had no idea how long he was sitting there silently—probably hours—because by the time he snapped back into reality, the man in the blue dress shirt was back with a truly ‘garrote…ish’ looking thing inside a plastic bag labeled EVIDENCE. 

“So that’s it?” he asked 

The man nodded “Yeah we think so. We’re just about to send it down for processing, so we can see if there are finger prints we can lift from it.” 

“Right.” He said. And right after he said that, the other men began to pack up their papers and zip up their brief cases. 

“Where are you going?” He asked swiftly, standing up from his chair too quickly. 

“Home. This could take a while, so there’s no point to waiting here all night. You should do the same. Take the night off.”

Sherlock felt his eye twitch at the suggestion. But before he could argue with them, he was being ushered out of the building and in a blink he found himself back in his flat. 

He slumped down into his bed, and listened to the silence of an empty apartment. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a light sleep. All he could dream about though was the case; he had always been very singularly minded. His sleep was restless and confusing. He woke up every few hours covered in sweat, but he couldn’t seem to recall any of his dreams. He assured himself softly that it was just stress. 

By the time the sun came up, he had already been awake for hours. After a while he wasn’t willing to go back to sleep and eventually just got up and sat on the couch for a while. His feet were up on the coffee table, where some bills from the mail now rested. Sherlock ignored them; he would send them to Mycroft later so he could pay them. 

In the silence of thought, his phone rang and he leapt from the couch to his phone. 

“Hello? Have the finger prints been identified?” He demanded eagerly 

“…Yes they have…Sherlock you should get down here immediately…” The voice said

“Why? Is there something wrong with the prints?”   
Then the dial tone on the other own told him that his caller had hung up. 

He dressed and ate, and left his flat. After calling a cab he made his way to the station unsure of what awaited him there. Once inside, Sherlock scanned the room for Lestrade and saw him with the other detectives and experts back in the meeting room. 

“Moring all,” He said mockingly there was a slight drawl in his speech that made it clear he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. 

“Sherlock…” Lestrade said, “We got the results back…” 

“Right, yes fine. What are they then?” 

“The finger prints matched…” he stopped at made eye contact with the others and apprehensively continued “Billy Kincaid.”

For six hearts beats no one spoke. Sherlock knew very well who Billy Kincaid was—a former playboy turned philanthropist from Camden who was famous in the media for his dedication to the cause of restoring and building hospitals and orphanages. Sherlock knew very well why this was a problem, it was because Kincaid was the media’s golden boy, and they would never believe that he could have been capable of committing this murder. In most investigations the media could easily sway public opinion and make the police’s jobs easier or harder; In this case…harder.

“Billy Kincaid,” he repeated 

“Yeah, he is-“ Sherlock cut one of the detectives off 

“I know who he is, and I think we all know what this means.” 

There were nods from the entire room. 

Sherlock stood up and wrapped his scarf back around his neck, after he stood up abruptly. 

“Fine then, “ and without another word he left. 

The Internet made it easy for Sherlock to find Kincaid’s address. And from there it was just a short cab ride away. He had no idea what he wanted to say to Kincaid when he got there, but he trusted himself to figure it out. 

In the end he figured the obvious was the easiest chose. 

He rang the doorbell of the house; it was one of those pretentious doorbells that played a tune from a classical symphony. A tall man with a strong bone structure and dark brown shaggy hair answered the door.   
“Hello?” he said 

“Hello yes, sorry to bother you. I am Robert Paisley,” he lied “I am a reporter with the observer, I’ve been sent to do an in depth piece on your latest project.” 

The man’s face twisted “No one told me about this,” 

“Well I spoke to your publicist two days ago,” he lied again 

Kincaid rolled his eyes and sighed “Jeff…. He never tells me anything,”

Sherlock tried to hide his pleasure, that he was being granted access. Billy led him into the living room and they took a seat on the sofa. Sherlock looked in slight awe at the room; it was truly massive, which was unsurprising given the size of the house and the size of Kincaid’s budget. There were antique vases on tables along the perimeter of the room in varying colors, rich oil paintings lined each wall as well, the couches in the center were of an expensive brand of Italian leather. Mounted over the regal stone hearth there was an almost ridiculously large flat screen TV. The room itself smelled of nothing, it wasn’t homey in anyway, there were no cookies baking and there was no smell suggesting any pets or animals. The entire house felt all too large for itself and all too unused. 

“Mr. Kincaid,” Sherlock began 

“Oh Billy please,” He corrected 

“Yes of course, Billy.” Sherlock gave a fake smile. “Would you please tell me about your upcoming pursuits.”

He proceeded to ramble for a bit about hospitals and health and “doing it for the children.” 

Sherlock nodded and pretending to care and wrote some scribbles down as he imitated taking notes. After a few moments Sherlock interrupted as said “Tell me are you familiar with anyone named Henry Salinger?” He asked tossing the name of the victim into the conversation with the murderer—a risky move. 

Kincaid looked caught off guard, his eyes widened and he swallowed hard. 

Gotcha Sherlock though to himself. 

“Yes he was an orderly at one of your hospitals,”

Kincaid was silent but serious he clenched his jaw together. 

“What do you want?” He whispered, “I need that to stay buried.”

“Your murder?”

Kincaid straightened and sat forward narrowing his eyes “Murder?!”   
Sherlock waited.

“I…I didn’t kill Henry.” He said softly playing with the wedding band on his finger

“Well somehow he ended up dead.” 

“Well it wasn’t me…” He said lifelessly

His shock from this news went beyond that of normal human mourning, Sherlock realized there was more to this. 

“What exactly was your relationship with Henry Salinger?” Sherlock asked

Kincaid’s heavy eyes looked up “I just knew him…he was a friend that’s all,” he said, clearly a lie. “I mean…an acquaintance.” He corrected himself. 

He fidgeted slightly in his seat as though he was uncomfortable, and he rubbed his eyes agitatedly with his hand. 

Sherlock rolled his eyes; he didn’t have time for this. “Mr. Kincaid, your pupils have dilated, you are clearly producing excess cortisol, and the touching of the eyes is a clear indication of lying. So tell me the truth, what was your relationship with Henry Salinger?” 

Kincaid’s mouth dropped slightly “What kind of reporter are you?” he stammered

Sherlock breathed heavily “A very, very good one. Now answer the question.”

After taking a deep breathe spoke again, slowly and precisely choosing just the right words. 

“I…I loved Henry,”   
Sherlock was silent for a moment…loved him? Sherlock thought Of course! I was so blind!

“Tell me about your wife Mr. Kincaid.” 

He looked startled for a minute “What for?”

“Just do it.”

“Her name is Holly Martin, she is a doctor….”

“And she was the one that prompted you to do charity work yes?”

“Right, she worked at one of the hospitals I donated to.”

“The same hospital as Henry Salinger?” Sherlock suggested raising an eyebrow “In fact I would go as far as to deduce that she was the one that introduced the two of you.”

“…Oh my god…” he said shaking his head “We met through her, and we started talking, he was funny and smart, he didn’t care about my past and he didn’t care about my money. He was a good man, a kind man. “

That was all Sherlock needed to hear, he understood.

“You should have been more discreet Mr. Kincaid. I do believe that Ms. Martin caught the two of you.”

He nodded in expressionlessly, as if he already knew, but didn’t want to accept it. 

“In order to preserve your marriage and to ensure that her hospital continued to receive your grant money, she blackmailed you.”

He didn’t offer a response or explanation in return for the accusation. 

“You wanted to break it off and withdraw your donations didn’t you?”

He slouched and buried his head into his cupped hands. His body convulsed, and Sherlock could only assume he was crying. 

“She was the one that loved charity and helping people,” he said “I never cared much until I met her. I thought she could help me change my reputation, I partied too much when I was young, I got into trouble she said she could help me…”

“It was a business relationship then? She helped you turn your life around by giving you a better name, and you gave her money for her hospitals and diverse other causes didn’t you? But then you fell in love with Henry, and you wanted to be with him instead of her. She found out, and knew that she needed the money. So she threatened to tell the media about you having an affair with Henry didn’t she? That would have ruined your new reputation.” 

“I shouldn’t have cared…he was worth losing my reputation.”

He wanted to ask Billy why he hadn’t just let Holly spoil his affair, but he continued speaking. 

“I loved him, I didn’t lover her…”

“But she loved you.” Sherlock told him flatly, it was obvious. “To you it was business, to her…it might have started that way, but black mail is almost always a crime of passion.”

His face flattened, and his eyes became hollow. “I know.”

Sherlock said nothing, and nothing. He wanted to hear more. 

“I used her, don’t you see? I have never been a good person; I took her—a kind giving person and dangled love in front of her. I assumed that she knew it was just business, those had been out terms…but years passed and I guess she became comfortable. I enjoyed our life and I enjoyed what she gave me—a new name—but…” He shook his head conflicted “Oh this is all my fault.”

“Do you understand Mr. Kincaid? Do you see what happened?”

He nodded miserably “Yes.”

“Then what do you want to do?” He asked, Sherlock usually didn’t offer a choice but Billy wasn’t to blame in this situation he needed to do something right for once…

Billy thought and stood, he held out his hands with his wrists pressed together. “Arrest me Mr. Paisley, turn me into the police please.”

Sherlock was speechless, this was an unforeseen twist.

“W-what? You want to go down for the crime…but,” Billy cut him off

“I can’t let this happen to Holly, I don’t love her but she became a good friend who made a mistake despite her good heart. Turn me in instead.” He insisted 

Sherlock shook his head, this didn’t feel like the sort of things a Consulting Detective should do, but he had found the answers he needed and that came with immense relief. 

“Mr. Kincaid, my real name is Sherlock Holmes and I’m with…the police, do you know what you are allowing to happen?”

“I do and I don’t care,” he said 

“But your wife imitated a known serial killer and killed your lover by strangling him with a garrote, and then tried to frame you in his murder. She planted you finger prints on the murder weapon. You want to allow this?”

He smiled slightly despite the seriousness of the situation “Mr. Holmes, I have always been a man of vision and I see Holly doing more good than bad and I can’t get in the way of her dreams. I loved Henry and I hate what happened to him! But he too was passionate and would have put the needs of others far above his own. I am the one who cheated on my pledged wife, drank away so much of my families fortune in my youth and never actually tried to make myself into anything. I unknowing played with her and turned a beautiful caring person into a killer. I am in the wrong here, I deserve to go down for it more than she does, and please Mr. Holmes if you known anything about human nature let me be the Camden Garrotter.” He pleaded, giving himself his own title. 

Sherlock truly knew nothing about the human nature that Billy wanted him to understand, but he comprehended the logic behind allowing someone who does good to go free and someone who would do nothing but bad without the other to rot in prison. He nodded and called Lestrade.

Over the next few months Kincaid’s trial went on and he was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison. But has it turned out that life sentence would be short lived, a few weeks into his sentence Kincaid hung himself in his cell with his belt. Molly from St. Bartholomew’s did his autopsy, and arranged his cremations. But before he was burned lost to earth, Molly hesitantly granted Sherlock a very strange request. Sherlock tool Kincaid’s skull before the burning and when he got home that night, he placed it on his fireplace mantle. 

“Billy…” he still whispers each day when he passed it, just so he would never forget the name of the first man he ‘caught’ as a Consulting Detective and so he would always remember his oldest vow—bring answers and justice, which is what he always did. But he also kept Billy on his mental as a reminder that people aren’t what they seem and to look beyond clues and into humanity—thought it would turn out to be a difficult skill for him to learn, one which he would not master for many more years to come. 

He worked a few more cases with Lestrade over the years, only the ones that baffled the police. He watched as Anderson became a detective and Molly become a doctor, and as everything that once was…. changed. 

He created a website called “the Science of Deduction” which gained his some recognition in some circles, it provided him with a steady stream of clients—some boring some fascinating. Once he found this new outlet of his, he found that his need for the drugs that had once run so much of his life disintegrated. Though in times of great stress he found himself smoking alone in his flat. Mycroft often teased him that he would become addicted to the nicotine patches he used to quit. 

Eventually Sherlock decided to move closer to London, and closer to the police, deciding it was best for his future. There came a particular afternoon in 2010, when Sherlock was at Bart’s with Molly running tests on some evidence for a case, just for the first time hearing about a string of mass suicides in London. A man calling himself Mike Stamford over heard him telling Molly that he would soon be in need of a room mate, and Mike told Sherlock of an old class mate returning from the army who would soon be coming back from “Either Iraq or Afghanistan…I’m never sure one it is.” 

He laughed of course at Mike and plainly told him “Oh, who would want me for a roommate?”


End file.
